Action-RPG colossus Elden Ring is reportedly getting a free-to-play mobile adaptation with in-app purchases, which takes inspiration from miHoYo’s Genshin Impact. It’s being published by Tencent, who apparently acquired the licensing rights to Elden Ring back in 2022 and put a few dozen people to work on a prototype, even as the company acquired a 16% stake in Elden Ring developer From Software.
They have literally taken down servers before for maintenance and the like.
Oh, yea, they have a verification server for shadowbans but it isn’t strictly necessary for matchmaking, if that verification process were removed you can still play. The seemless coop mod for example does that.